Litany Of Things Scott Walker Unclear On Now Includes His Day Job

Having said that, he'd still love the good people of Wall Street to open their checkbooks on his behalf.

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Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Mar 2, 2015

"Got me."

All of the foie gras and 30-year-old Scotch appear to have gone to the Wisconsin governor’s head, because he doesn’t seem to know much of anything these days. He’s not 100% up to speed on that whole Dodd-Frank thing, although he’s heard it’s awful. He’s pretty sure that air-traffic controllers work for the State Department, but, again, don’t ask him to swear by it. He doesn’t know if the president he’d like to succeed is a Christian or a patriot. He can’t really pin down what he thinks about evolution. And, in spite of his much-ballyhooed reelection four months ago, he’s not so sure he still is Wisconsin’s governor.

Mr. Walker’s appearances at donor conclaves will take him back and forth across the country several times between late January and early March….
“Oh, I think along the way I’ll be at plenty of dairy events and farm events and factories just like when I was governor,” Mr. Walker said.

One thing is he sure about, however, is he really likes the people passing those hors d’oeuvres and all of the money they can give him.

G.O.P. Race Starts in Lavish Haunts of Rich Donors [NYT]

Oopsie daisies.

He's got so many coupons, you guys. And they're going to save America.

Over at the Journal today you will find a story called "Awkward Spot For Citi's CEO," which details the various awkwardness encountered by Mike Corbat since he took over as Chief Executive Officer, following Vikram Pandit's awkward ousting. There is also a delightful bonus round of awkwardness that comes as a postscript to the article, but we'll get the that later. First, why are things slightly awk for Corbat? Well, for starters, he knew that Pandit was going to be unexpectedly and unceremoniously fired long before VP did, including the entire time they were on a business trip together. The whole time they were flying over there together, having dinner together, meeting with clients together, taking in shows and doing touristy things when they had downtime from the conference together, he knew Pandit was about to get hit by a truck. No one blames Corbat for Vickles getting canned but, at the same time, there is a feeling by a few at Citi that you'd have to be some kind of monster to look a person in the eye and say "Sure, a trip the the Zen Temples sounds great," and take in the cherry blossoms and drink sake and do karaoke and fight over who is Scarlett Johansson and who is Bill Murray with him all the while knowing what was going to happen when you got home. For Vikram Pandit, a trip to Tokyo for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank conference last month seemed routine. But Michael Corbat, the longtime Citigroup executive who joined Mr. Pandit there, knew better. Unbeknown to Mr. Pandit, Citigroup Chairman Mike O'Neill had told Mr. Corbat that the board could seek Mr. Pandit's resignation as chief executive and hand the job to Mr. Corbat, according to people familiar with the situation. A day after Messrs. Pandit and Corbat returned to New York, that is exactly what happened. A host of financial, competitive and regulatory issues confronts the 52-year-old Mr. Corbat atop the nation's third-biggest bank by assets. But no task is more critical than soothing workers unsettled by the way the board ousted Mr. Pandit and his longtime right-hand man, John Havens, who ran the investment bank and served as president and chief operating officer. The effort is made even more delicate by Mr. Corbat's proximity to Mr. Pandit in the days before the coup. Executives say they don't blame Mr. Corbat for Mr. Pandit's overthrow, though some wondered how Mr. Corbat was able to sit through the IMF meetings knowing what was to unfold. Additionally awkward is the fact that there has been chatter around the office and scrawled on the walls of the men's room that there's only enough room in this Citi for one guy named Mike, and it's not Corbat. Adding to Mr. Corbat's challenges is the perception among some insiders that he is overshadowed by Mr. O'Neill. Employees have privately joked that of the two Mikes, it is Mr. O'Neill who is truly in charge. People close to Mr. O'Neill dispute that notion and say he has spent little time at his Citigroup office in the past month. Finally, you have the awkwardness of Mike not only knowing his colleague Vikram was going to be fired, but that his colleague and friend, John Havens, was getting the boot himself, which may or may not have caused auxiliary awkwardness for Corbat on the home front. Mr. Corbat's position is all the more awkward given his close personal relationship with Mr. Havens. The two men spent time together outside of work, occasionally vacationing with their wives at Mr. Havens' Scotland estate. All good examples of things that could be characterized as awkward to be sure. But! The absolute most wonderful bit of awkwardness to be found in "Awkward Spot For Citi's CEO," is, without question, this:

Jim Cramer Weeps

May you ever love something as much as the Mad Dog of Wall Street loves his Eagles.

His thing being stuff like "Trespassing on company property and threatening employees who do not support his return by taking their photos and promising to fire them once he returns."

As you all are well aware, from time to time we cover food eating challenges around these parts. We don't chronicle all the feats of gastrointestinal fortitude that come our way, though, because while we love you all, not all of your FECs constitute what we'd consider an actual challenge worth covering. As previously discussed, our high bar has everything to do with the first contest we ever wrote about (as a postmortem), which involved a man named Oyster Boy, who consumed 244 oysters in 1 hour at Ulysses, throwing down the gauntlet down for one of you to pick up, vis-à-vis goring yourself for sport. Do we really expect anyone to match OB in magnitude or strength of stomach lining? No, we do not. Having said that, "challenges" such as eating 8 vending machine items in 12 hours (or in an unlimited amount of time!) are not going to cut it. It's not an exact science but we look for FECs that are imaginative, topical, and/or represent a high degree of difficulty. (And while we wouldn't actually advise it, live streaming the whole thing would make our day.) Which brings us to today's challenge. It occurred at an investment bank in midtown and although it loses points for not letting us know ahead of time so that we could chronicle the thing in real time, there are a number of things we like about it. Intern vs. VP. [Redacted] intern's last day (ever?). A dozen donuts each from our friends at DD. 1 hour limit to finish...Intern: larger build, 6'1" and extremely ambitious. VP: fit and 5'8" with a vicious appetite. Identical donut selection includes: - 2 chocolate - 2 glazed - 1 sugar - 2 strawberry frosted - 2 chocolate frosted - 1 blueberry - 1 Oreo crumble - 1 Boston creme VP downed the whole thing in 13:31. Intern disappointingly tapped out shortly after at 9 donuts and a bite. Intern is feeling "terrible," is alternating between a sugar rush and mild depression, and wants to sleep under his desk. It's not clear what's going on in his mind and body. Besides looking very uncomfortable, he's having a hard time responding to questions with any answer besides "I don't know." He's buying drinks for everyone tonight. Obviously there's zero sense of urgency here as a result of getting a recap rather than doing it live. But! Twelve adult-sized donuts (as opposed to a bunch of munchkins)? Good. Thirteen minutes for the whole spread? Good. Pitting a superior against an underling (rather than making a couple of interns race each other)? GOOD. Take these ideas, particularly the last one and run with them. Feel free to come up with your own but at least just consider making founder vs. peasant/30 minutes/2 chocolate fountains each/70-100 items to dip/race to the finish happen.

Last Thursday afternoon, hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb, who is waging a proxy battle against Yahoo, made a simple request: that the board of directors fire CEO Scott Thompson, who had lied about having a computer science degree from Stonehill College, when in fact the academic fraud only graduated with a degree in accounting. Loeb wanted the job done by Monday at 12 noon, EST and as the deadline passed, it was clear the request was would not be honored. As a result, Loeb was forced to demand every single document related to Thompson's hiring at the company. Emails, heading hunting referrals, thoughts, feelings, the works. Most importantly, the résumé Thomspon submitted when applying for the gig. Did Loeb enjoy dragging this out? No. Did he take pleasure in watching the "carnage" unfold? Certainly not, and he's shocked and offended anyone would ever think that. Nevertheless, a computer science degree had been fabricated out of thin air and Loeb felt he owed it to shareholders to get some answers. And while Yahoo! has presumably not yet faxed over the documents he asked for, they did offer this: Apparently the Yahoo chief says he's being honest when he tells us no fake résumés were submitted to Yahoo because they never got any résumés, period. Yahoo‘s embattled chief executive, Scott Thompson, told the company’s senior management on Thursday that he never submitted a résumé or falsified his academic credentials, a person briefed on the matter said. [Dealbook]

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